A Note to Developers - Glaring Flaw in Removing MMR Tanking

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

MMR Tanking is a tactic in which a player will intentionally lose matches once they’ve reached their normal or equivalent opponent range in order to soften their MMR and create a scenario in which they can find easier opponents to hit for easier points.

MMR stands for “Match-Made Ranking” Or “Match-Making Rank”. MMR is an invisible number used in many games (such as League of Legends, online Chess simulators and Marvel Puzzle Quest) to pair players with opponents of similar strength, skill or capability, ideally creating a fair gaming environment for all.

The removal of MMR Tanking, then, is on the surface a wonderful idea. Removing it prevents players from gaming the system to create a favorable environment of easy wins. The underlying problem with this is that it over-stabilizes MMR - that is, the impact of legitimate losses is lessened or nullified as well. MMR Tanking is intentionally losing to reduce your MMR. This can only exist because in an MMR system, when you lose a game your MMR is reduced so that your next game will be easier. When you win, your MMR is raised so that your next game is tougher. This continues until the player and his opponents are on about equal ground, and as you play more and more games your MMR (should) stabilize, fluctuating less per win or loss (with exceptions for when you defeat someone with much higher MMR than yourself or lose to someone with much lower MMR than yourself). But through removing MMR Tanking and relying on level-based matchmaking, we’ve created an awful scenario for several groups of people, such as players with a shallow pool of maxed 3 stars that are ineffective (like Beast, She-Hulk, etc) or transitioners that have characters exceeding level 94 but not yet maxed, or even sub-optimally covered (like a level 101 2/4/5 Luke Cage). These players are now thrown to the sharks like 166Black Panther, 166Thor, 270Wolverine etc. In the past, they’d have played through lower ranking players, building MMR until they hit the wall, but after a few defeats the game would adjust and find players of their caliber through dynamic match-making rather than static character levels. Now…Seed Teams and done, if you’re unfortunate enough to find yourself in that scenario.

I personally am not amidst this plight, but I have a number of friends who are and, if this trend continues they will likely quit (impacting me more directly, at that point, as I will have lost fellow players to discuss the game with and share facebook rewards). More importantly, this will negatively impact virtually all the 2 Star players at some point, when they decide to begin their transition. The reason this is so disheartening is because this change was enacted for their benefit, yet in the long term will directly harm them.

What can be done to correct this? Either employ a more effective MMR system that performs more precise calculations to defer MMR Tanking yet still calculates Dynamic MMR / Elo rather than static character level, or significantly reduce PvP Progression rewards to ranges more appropriate for scores players of each tier are likely to reach and benefit from.

Tl;Dr - Removing MMR Tanking also removed legitimate MMR, and even if that helps you now it will hurt you in the future.

2

Discussing MMR in this game is always tricky mostly because there is really NO MMR in this game… I shall now try and justify my statement!

MMR implies there is a system by which you are match against another person based on skill, results, resources (delete as applicable) HOWEVER in MPQ you are always playing Bacon_Magic because you are always playing vs the AI. The only thing that changes is the roster you face, the points you score and the person punished for you having a match (if they are unshielded).

IMO MPQ PvP has scaling just like PvE. They have simply changed it from a fairly reactive form of scaling which started out lower in an event and eventually ramped up to being ramped up from the start. If it was in PvE you would simply think it was community scaling throughout an event.

PvP also has grinding, it just hides it under points decay over which you have no control (beyond shielding). So by making you lose more points you need to play more matches, hence grinding more AND IMO those PvP “losses” are just a controlled form of points decay. You get to avoid it up until an “equilibrium point” and they have just moved the equilibrium point downwards.

Finally… my PvE analogy of PvP finishes on every match being a Heroic mode essential node. You have a hero forced upon you then a very limited pool of heroes you can reasonably use to fill the spaces. Unlike a heroic the pool never really changes (I know you can use almost any hero you like but to do well your choices are essentially very restricted). When there is a curve to your targets (lower level to higher) you can use a wide range of characters (if you have them) but highly scaled nodes immediately post seeds mean that limited pool starts right away.

The only thing in PvP that ever struck me as being PvP like was meta gaming, co-ordinating and I guess sniping (if you’re into that kind of thing). Everything else may as well be a PvE (which isn’t really PvE).

SO “what was tanking in your grand anology” you ask? (or not) Well it’s intentionally taking damage to reduce your scaling… just like in PvE 8).

The solution? Well if you aren’t going to have tanking then you need to have a much better scaling algorithm (call it matchmaking if you want but you’re still always being matched against bacon_magic with varying rosters). Just grouping by rarity tiers is far too broad. OFC having a more refined system when players are already sorted by time slices might limit your targets to too few ppl making bizarre mini tournaments where no-one makes any headway.

Maybe just put it back how it was with reduced point losses below given thresholds so a vet hitting a 2* team is just a mild inconvenience then they hit the MMR (still not MMR) breakdown score and fight amongst themselves?

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All salient points. Either way, I think something needs to be addressed about PvP.

The people who can get the 2 Star probably don’t need it.
The people who can get the 3 Star almsot definitely don’t need it (save for new releases).
The people who can get the 4 Star probably don’t need it.

Progressions need an overhaul.

4

I disagree with your post.

People who really need the 2* will fight to get it.
People who really need the 3* will fight to get it.
People who really need the 4* will fight to get it.

People who don’t need any of the above will fight for 1st.
If you don’t want to do the above you’ll “Meh” the round and get your alliance minimum / enough iso that it makes it worth your while.

I say this from experience, so yes, anecdotal evidence, blah blah blah. However, if you are at the stage of needing a cover, you feel compelled to get it. If you don’t want to fight for that cover, you don’t need it.

Having said all of the above, I still agree that prog rewards need to be looked at. icon_e_smile.gif

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I need the 3 Star more often than not, and usually cannot get it if the event also has good placement rewards.

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You actually need it, or you’d just like to have it? For me, if I can look at the reward list and not care overly much about a cover, I don’t need it. If it’s a cover that I’d be tempted buy outright with hp, I ‘need’ that cover.

I also don’t know what your “Fight for it” is defined as. If I need a reward I will actively try to get it. I will blow a lot of iso on boosts/skips. I will spend hp on both boosts and health packs. I will shield hop when I’m close and the time is against me. Generally I limit the spending to under what the cover would cost me in hp, but if I really need that cover (possibly I don’t have that ability already), I will go over. I will skip to find 30+ points nearly every single attack. I’ll play at odd hours for the slice that I’m in to try to minimise retals while climbing and skip sleep to hit the very end of events to make sure that I get it.

I can’t think of a cover that I’ve actually “fought” for and missed out on. Some of them have been very hard slogs, some have been easy.

I have, on the other hand, missed a lot of covers that it “would be nice” to get. I do that quite regularly. I’ll try for it, but won’t care if I don’t make it to that reward. – I’ll put up a score that supports my alliance and then find other things to do with my time.

“Fighting” for a cover - for me - isn’t something that I do every pvp. It’s something that I do sparingly, because it’s a drain when I do, and I like to keep the fun in the games that I play. icon_e_smile.gif

Hope that helps.